New Mission
by BrailleErin
Summary: This could be a Covert Affairs episode 7.1.  Auggie gets to go right back into the field for an additional mission.  No rest for him or for Annie who goes along.  Can they stop a mastermind hacker before he opens wide the door to another 9/11?
1. Chapter 1

My first fanfic. I'm not sure what to say here or what disclaimers to give... obviously I have nothing whatever professionally to do with Covert Affairs. Just a fan and I love to write.

New Mission

Chapter 1

"I guess I proved I'm still fit for field work" Auggie repeated to himself, tasting the words, enjoying them. He sat sprawled still, on the sofa in Joan's office, the fingers of his right hand idly tracing the rough texture of the arm of the sofa, letting his body relax and allow the wash of emotion roll back off him like a receding wave. Natasha was gone. He knew that; he wasn't lying to Joan when he'd said he would never see her again. She would never contact him again. She'd given him the hack and she'd jumped from the train and from his life. He sighed deeply and stood, facing the empty office where Joan had so recently stood. As usual she had bustled out as soon as she was done with their debrief, sitting for a moment beside him, connecting, giving her sympathy and understanding then rising again and hastily moving on to the next thing. She was like that, he thought.

Moving on to the next thing. Moving on. Leaving Natasha again to be relegated to a part of his past, neatly filed away in his memory to be pulled up again only after he'd had one too many beers at Alex's [what was the name of the bar, anyway?]. Could he do it again?

"Auggie, get in here!" Joan's voice barked and he jumped, his reverie now lying in scattered shards on Joan's office floor. Hastily, he pulled his laser cane out of his pocket and went into the Ops Center where Joan was assembling technicians and officers on the upper level for an unexpected briefing. Their low whispers sank into heavy silence as they waited to hear what was happening.

"Auggie, good, you're here," she snapped as he mounted the stairs. "DataTech has been taken hostage. Something we've never seen before. Since you were just there, I want you and Annie to go back in."

A surge of adrenaline pushed out the fatigue and let-down he'd been feeling in Joan's office. Time to get back to work. He had no idea what time it was, but he'd be willing to bet it was late. Without bothering to check his watch, he turned to face the screens and Joan, waiting to hear what she would explain next.

Silence.

"That's it?" Annie asked incredulously.

"That's it," Joan replied with a trace of a weary smile in her voice. "I want to get somebody on the inside before they know that we know. You'll be going in blind, but I hope you can find out what they're doing before they do it."

_Ha, ha_, thought Auggie. _Nice one, Joan_.

"What are we waiting for?" he said.

Annie slipped past him, offering an elbow as she did so. Gratefully, he followed her through the tangle of desks in the Ops Center and into the echoing hallway. Yes, it was late. Normally the hallway bustled with activity, but tonight it seemed unusually long and the low tones of their conversation rattled along it, bouncing back ghostly echoes that unnerved him.

"What do you think is happening?" Annie asked.

Auggie shook himself, willing himself to pay attention to what she had said. He really was tired. "Hmm? No idea. Probably some punk-ass wannabe hacker."

Half his mind still felt the brushes of curly red hair, the memory of soft lips and the remembered intensity of her gaze. Annie was talking again.

"…do you think they could do anyway?"

His mind snapped back again. Here. Now. Late. Walking with Annie toward her car and some idiot who was holding DataTech hostage.

"With the best hackers in the world? And no outside interference? He could do some major damage."


	2. Chapter 2

Gripping the armrest as Annie sped around a tight corner, Auggie joked, "you trying to get to Bowser's Castle before Koopa?"

"Huh?" asked Annie, taking a stomach-wrenching left.

"Nothing, never mind," muttered Auggie. Sometimes a joke just fell flat. No better way to get back into geek mode than to tell dumb Nintendo jokes. He gripped the armrest tighter as the car veered right again and lurched to a stop, tightening the seat belt against his chest. _The girl drove like a bat out of hell_, he thought, then winced at his own cliché.

Annie turned off the ignition and they both sat for a second, gearing up for what might come next. There was really no way to mentally prepare for a new mission and Auggie knew the best way was to not think about it. He opened the door gingerly, hoping Annie hadn't parked too close to a curb or another car, remembering briefly one time when he'd swung the door wide and slammed the edge into a Suburban, denting the door and worse, triggering a blaring car alarm.

This time, however, the way was clear and he unfolded his cane, shaking it to snap the sections into place. He tapped it twice on the ground like he always did to make sure it each ferrule was locked, then he stood, squaring his shoulders. Whatever was coming, he was ready.

[break]

"You can't come in," the man at the door spoke with a jittery undercurrent in his voice.

"Come on, we just stepped out for a half an hour to grab a burger. All my stuff is in there," Auggie spoke up before Annie tried to invent a reason for them to slip in past the door guard.

"You should go while you can," the man said between shut teeth.

"You wouldn't leave your gear in there, would you?" Auggie reasoned. "What's the big deal anyway?" He figured playing dumb wouldn't hurt. People usually saw the white cane and bought anything he told them.

"Okay, okay, but keep it quiet," the man said, opening the door with a creak.

His fingertips lightly on Annie's right elbow, Auggie concentrated listening to the big room as they entered. Normally a buzz of voices, the main display room now felt awkward, hushed. Rather than the demonstrative conversations of techno-geeks hawking their skills and wares, there now sounded conversations in undertones, speculation and an air of nervous suspense. They halted to listen to the nearest of these exchanges, just on the other side of one of the blue cloth dividing curtains. Auggie strained to hear the soft voices, and he knew by holding her breath, Annie was doing the same.

"…freaking out of his mind?" said one voice, a female.

"Maybe he figures enough of these idiots will help him," said the other, deeper voice.

"He's probably right," said the first. "But he thinks he's gonna do this right under the noses of the feds and just walk away?"

"He's just hoping for attention. If this works, he'll be working for them in six months. You know that."

"Then it better not work," the first voice said with finality.

Annie shifted her feet and Auggie knew she was thinking exactly what he was thinking. Get to know these people better.


	3. Chapter 3

Auggie had learned to love detail. He used details for success, both in work and in life. He loved that the CIA insisted on details. Details like the burgers they used for their cover story were real. He was hungry.

As he and Annie introduced themselves to the whispering couple, he actually held in his hand a foil-wrapped double cheeseburger, still hot. Not as hot as it once had been but he wasn't picky at this point. He couldn't remember the last meal he'd eaten, not to mention the fact that he and Natasha had been up all the previous night buying train tickets and getting onto the Canadian-bound Amtrak. He tried not to think about it. About her.

Annie was talking. He knew he ought to follow the conversation, to participate, but instead he took a step backward and began unwrapping his burger. Geek-like, he thought, wryly.

"…don't you think, Auggie?" Annie's question penetrated the haze and he answered around the mouthful.

"Mmmm-hmm." His mind was still mostly elsewhere.

"…finish Natasha Petrovna's job, didn't you hear the loudspeaker?" the woman was saying and Auggie went suddenly still, listening on full alert. He forced himself to keep chewing, not give away the fact that the name had completely electrified him.

"We stepped out for a minute," Annie said sheepishly, foil rustling as she held up her fast food.

"I'm surprised they let you back in," the man said, "since his lackeys have the place on lockdown, or whatever they call it."

"What do you mean, finish Natasha's job?" asked Auggie. "What does she have to do with anything?"

"They say she was behind that hack yesterday morning," explained the woman. "These clowns want to use her stuff to …"

"She released it?" Auggie asked, interrupting.

"She didn't need to," said the man.

"What are they doing with it?" Annie prompted.

"You know, the usual idealistic crap," the man snorted. "Leveling, they call it. No more rich people, no more poor people. All the world's power drained away. Erase the records of every bank account, cut off satellite communication, mess with the system, the usual."

Auggie gritted his teeth. _Don't they realize it just open the door for terrorists to march around wherever they want?_

"You two were talking… you think you can stop them?" Annie questioned.

"The key here," the man began, "is beating them at their own game. We need to out-hack the hackers. And we need to do it fast."

Auggie munched his burger thinking, _sounds like this guy doesn't even need us_.

He was soon to be proven very wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

To everyone who has read, commented, favorited, alerted… THANK YOU! As a newb, it's a treat to have some positive encouragement and I'm having a lot of fun with this.

Chapter 4

It turned out there lived a couch right there in the booth where Auggie stood. It had been hauled into the conference floor supposedly for "atmosphere" but really for a place to crash when someone pulled an all-nighter. Or in Auggies case, several.

The whisperers finally introduced themselves with much wry amusement as Harry and Sally. They didn't mind at all having a fellow geek sleeping on their vinyl couch and Auggie was soon out, trusting Annie to wake him if anything happened. She continued to converse in low tones, getting details, plotting a course of action.

He figured he'd crashed around dawn and when he finally struggled back to the surface of consciousness his watch read 11:30. He lay still for a few minutes, trying to clear his head and get re-oriented. He didn't hear Annie's voice nearby. The entire room still seemed covered by the unnatural hush, so unlike the usual DataTech bustle.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a quiet voice spoke, so close the person must have been sitting quite near him for some time without moving.

"I know who you are."

Auggie fought down the panic and disorientation he still felt and lay quietly without moving for a second, then sat up, trying to appear calm, although his heart hammered against his ribs.

"What do you mean?" he asked guardedly.

"You know what I mean."

Auggie had used this trick before on assets. Pretend you know more than you do to get them to start blabbing. He wasn't about to fall for it. But the frightening thing, he realized, is it might not be a trick. The strange thing was that he had a hard time deciding if the quiet, calm voice came from a woman with a decidedly low voice or a man's tenor. He waited. Sometimes if the ball was in his court he could win the game by refusing to play.

"Annie's gone, you know. They took her right away."

"They?" Auggie kept his voice carefully neutral.

"Melkin's guys, of course. He can't have spooks nosing around in here."

Spooks. He (She?) did know.

Uh oh.

Was this androgynous, disembodied voice next to him one of "Melkin's guys" too? Was he guarding Auggie, and if so why sit so patiently waiting for him to awaken? Auggie had an absurd image flash through his mind of a large golden Buddha statue sitting patiently beside the door of a Chinese restaurant. The trouble was that the Buddha always smiled with benign content while this voice beside him made his skin crawl.

"You'll have to come with me now," said the voice, gripping him suddenly by the wrist with a force that told Auggie immediately that his companion was both male and very strong. Auggie thought about pulling him close and taking him out, but decided he'd gain more information on Annie's whereabouts if he played along for a while. He reached with his free hand for his cane, folded and tucked under the front edge of the couch, but he was pulled to his feet before he could retrieve it. Terrific.

"Sshh," warned the man, keeping a grip on Auggie's wrist while at the same time prodding his back with the nose of a gun. Auggie rolled his eyes. This guy obviously stayed up late watching old mafia movies too much.

Auggie considered his options. Here in a crowd with only one captor his chances were the greatest at freeing himself. It would be so easy to pretend to trip, grab the guy's arm, then shoulder, then he would have the advantage.

_Wait_, he told himself.

The man led him on a zigzag course through the maze of booths and displays. Because he was trying not to attract attention, he guided Auggie carefully around obstacles and Auggie followed meekly, concentrating instead on discovering any useful landmarks. The booth where he had slept was near one edge of the large room, near the door where they had entered from the chilly night outside. Now they were making their way directly across the display floor, snaking through the avenues of cloth dividers. Auggie expected to head for the other side of the room and was mildly surprised when the man stopped near the center.

"Here he is," the man said in his quiet, even voice.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The first thing Auggie noticed as he was pushed onto a plastic chair was Jo Malone Grapefruit. Interesting.

"August Anderson," said a new voice, belonging to a man who crouched in front of Auggie's knees. He busied himself cuffing Auggie's hands, one to each rear metal chair leg. "You're starting to become pretty well-known around here, you know. A blind hacker who happens to work for the CIA."

"Thought it was just my good looks and charm," Auggie said.

"Oh yes, that too," the man agreed dryly, tightening the cuffs. He then stood with the stifled sigh that told Auggie he probably had back or knee problems. "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer, isn't that what they say? Let's see if we can keep you out of trouble for now."

Several people occupied the booth where he now sat, most of them clicking away on keyboards. Someone cleared his throat next to Auggie, making him jump. So they were being watched. No way to try to talk to Annie or contact Joan. It would be convenient if he could see Annie, make eye contact, communicate nonverbally, but he tossed that thought back out as soon as it came. He had to work with what he had.

The first thing to do was try to establish communication with Annie, then learn as much as he could about Melkin. Having the name gave Auggie a sense of groundedness, somewhere to start. And Annie. What did she know? She'd spent hours talking to Harry and Sally, possibly formulating a very workable plan. Where were they?

He listened. The people in the booth weren't talking at the moment.

A buzzer sounded, loud and harsh. The booth erupted into a flurry of activity as people scattered in several directions. Even Auggie's guard seemed to have been distracted for the moment. As ifto confirm this, he heard Annie whisper, "hey."

"Of all the gin joints in all the world…" Auggie started. "What brings a nice girl like you to a place like this?"

"Shhh, they're still out there," she said, hitching her chair closer to Auggie's and leaning in toward him.

"What have you found out?" Auggie asked, unprofessionally enjoying her closeness.

"Oh Harry dished the dirt on this guy. Apparently he's one of the DataTech regulars, but this time he's gone a little too far. You know the hack Natasha set off the other morning?"

Did he know? Had he thought of much else in the past 36 hours?

"Well," Annie continued, "This guy, Melvin or something like that, apparently worked with Natasha for a while. He's not a bad hacker himself, but nowhere up to Natasha's skill. Still he learned a lot and then went off on his own. I think they shared anarchist ideologies, among other things."

Auggie felt his insides twist at the implication of that statement.

"Harry's been monitoring the bandwidth usage ever since this guy took over and locked down the convention. Apparently it hasn't slowed much even though nobody is _supposed_ to be communication with the outside world."

"Melkin is in touch with someone outside?" Auggie asked.

"Not just in touch. He's sending a ton of stuff to them. Whatever he's up to, it's big."

"But why take the convention hostage? Why not just hole up in a motel somewhere to do his dirty work?"

"Harry thinks he wants to use the resources…" Annie broke off suddenly and sat upright.

Auggie turned away from her, assuming one of their guards had returned. He wished he'd had time to get more.

Instead he focused his attention on his surroundings, wondering what he could use. The booth had been spread with a thick carpet, muffling footfalls, which annoyed him, since it made it harder to keep track of coming and going. It seemed to be one of the bigger booths, and had at least four different desktop computers set up in it. Auggie sat with his back against one of the curtained dividers and he reached out fingertips to touch the rough cloth. He couldn't reach far enough to discover anything on the other side of it, nor could he hear anyone talking in the next booth. Maybe it was a hallway.

Across the convention floor a shot rang out. Their guard cursed and ran from the booth.

"Quick," Annie said, "No one's in here."

Auggie dove to the floor, pulling his chair over his back like an absurd turtle. Annie had done the same and he felt her pass in front of him, the back leg of her chair grazing his shoulder as she passed. He followed her lead, trying to keep in contact with the chair leg, crouching, ducking, running.

He'd been right about the hallways. She took an immediate right and then another, heading down the corridor right behind where he'd been sitting.

He got too close and the chair leg hit him on the cheekbone. Ouch. He'd have a bruise there later.

Awkwardly, still crouching with the chairs on their backs and their hands cuffed, they ducked to the left. Auggie desperately wanted his hands free. Having them cuffed made him doubly blind because needed to feel where he was going.

After another quick scramble, Annie ducked into an empty booth, her chair clanging against the pole of the curtained wall. Auggie followed tripping to land in a heap on his face beside her. He sat up on his knees at the sound of her muffled laughter.

"Call me Graceful," he whispered ruefully.

"Whatever, it worked. I don't think they saw us," she whispered back, then gasped. "Oh no, you're bleeding."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

11:42 AM

"We need a pair of bolt cutters or a hacksaw," Annie observed.

"Unless you want to keep the lovely chair you have chained to your wrists," Auggie agreed dryly.

"Not so much."

"We need to get moving. If we sit here talking, they'll come find us any minute. What do you suppose the gunshot was?" Auggie whispered.

"I don't know. Did you know you're bleeding onto the floor?" Annie asked.

"Nothing I can do about it at the moment," Auggie answered cheerfully. "What's the game plan?"

"I didn't get a chance to finish telling you. But we need to get out of here first."

"Agreed. You don't happen to have a handcuff key handy, do you?" Auggie said.

"I have a paper clip," Annie offered. "Can you get it out of my pocket?"

"C'mere, baby, I'd looove to get in your pocket," Auggie said in a mock-sexy voice. He figured Annie rolled her eyes and he chuckled. With some awkward maneuvering, he fished the paperclip out of Annie's pocket and spent some time straightening it then bending it in half to have two prongs to use for lockpicking. Considering he couldn't use both hands together, he was impressed with himself for accomplishing it at all. He handed it off to Annie who went to work on his near cuff.

As she worked, looking backward over her shoulder toward her own tied hands, Auggie heard feet running down the corridors next to where they hid. He resisted the urge to tell Annie to hurry, knowing his whisper might give them away.

At last he felt the cuff give way and quickly turning his chair he used both hands to pick the lock on the other one, then went to work on Annie's cuffs. Soon they were both free. Auggie raised his sleeve to wipe the trickle of blood running down his left cheek where he'd grazed the leg of Annie's chair.

The running feet and shouts receded, their presence going undetected in the maze of booths on the convention floor. Rather than running, for the moment, Annie pulled Auggie deeper into a corner of the booth behind a desk.

"I found out what he's up to," she said in an undertone.

"Melkin?"

"Is that his name? Harry thought it was Melvin."

"The goon that grabbed me called him Melkin," Auggie said.

"Okay, Melkin. Apparently he set up a new hack and is coordinating with this terrorist group on the outside. While the satellite array is down, they'll use that window of blackout to strike."

"When is the blackout going to happen?" Auggie asked urgently.

"Today, 4PM."

"Do you know what the target is going to be?"

"I think I heard him say they're going to take out Langley!"

Langley! Hitting the CIA headquarters would leave agents all over the world unprotected, would screw up covert communications worldwide before the backup protocols could be put in place. This could have a major ripple-effect if other terrorist groups were ready to strike. Aloud he said, "Oh great. How in the heck do we stop this guy and get the whereabouts of the terrorists out to Joan? Do you have your phone?"

"No, they took it."

"Mine too," Auggie said ruefully.

They sat for a moment in silence and Auggie was suddenly aware of the ticking of his watch, every second hitting his ear like a slap. Here they sat huddled behind a desk in the huge convention center under a complete communications lock down. They needed to get moving. Now.


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks to those of you who have left reviews and comments. I apologize for the time gap since I last wrote… life has been unusually hectic, not that THAT is any excuse when Auggie and Annie are in danger! So anyway, back to the story…

Chapter 7

11:56 AM

Auggie and Annie had been making their way stealthily across the conference-room floor, ducking into booths whenever anyone passed. Because information at this point was vital, they headed toward the gunshot, hoping both to avoid Melkin's goons and to find out what had happened.

They had been running along a corridor, the ends of Annie's hair flailing Auggie's cheek as she frantically turned her head left and right to check for pursuers. Auggie heard the slap of Oxfords and at the same moment, Annie pulled him in to a nearby booth. Instead of the smooth floor he expected, Auggie stumbled into a mountain of soft, somewhat hairy flesh; at the same time the overpowering odor of unwashed computer geek surrounded him. He winced and attempted to scramble backward off the man, whispering a muttered apology for nearly landing in his lap.

"Geez, can't you watch where you're going?" the man snapped under his breath. Auggie decided it wasn't worth wasting the time to explain. Without his cane, people never realized that the reason for inadvertent Three Stooges routines was actually blindness.

"What was the shot?" asked Annie of the overweight hacker.

"Didn't ya hear? Harry Lee got shot by one of Melkin's thugs. Sally just whipped by lookin' like she was amped."

"Harry?" Annie's constant, nervous energy seemed suddenly arrested by the news that her new friend was dead.

"Yeah," the hacker said. "It was real close. I heard Melkin come over here and personally chew out the guy who did it. Said he'd get a swat team in here doing stupid crap like that and then where would they be? But the guy said Harry was trying to set up a closed line to the outside and they couldn't risk a guy like that getting out."

"How did they find him?"

"Oh Melkin's got the whole place wired. Any cell activity, any wireless, any satellite, anything and he'd know right where it is in a second. S'why I'm just sticking it out in here. I ain't gonna get shot."

_Rats_, thought Auggie. _So much for contacting Joan in the usual way_.

Aloud he said, "Thanks, man," and reached for Annie's arm to pull her away. They needed to make a plan. They needed to talk.

This time it was Auggie who led the way, one hand brushing the curtained dividers, his ears straining for voices, for footsteps, anything or anyone that might stop them or worse, shoot them. Annie followed, pulling him aside when he was headed for a pole, but not questioning his leadership. For that he was grateful. She was a good partner to have in a foxhole. She knew when not to ask questions. As he hurried along, Auggie's mind raced, quite a bit faster than his feet. They needed to get to the inner workings of the building, a custodian's closet, a service hallway, an electrical panel. Something that would give him tools to work with and all of those things would be located along the walls of the huge convention room. Using the aural picture he had gained of the space, he headed toward one of the blank, echoing walls enclosing the room.

Once, Annie pulled him into a deserted booth where they crouched, breathing through their mouths, waiting while several pairs of feet ran past. Auggie sat on his heels, using even these few seconds to rest, unconsciously using years of military training and experience to give his body extra reserves. It was like an insane game of capture the flag, and he was the only one playing in the dark.

Soon, Annie poked her head out again and gave him the "all-clear" by a gentle tug on his elbow. Instantly he was in action, hurtling arm-in-arm with her down another maze-like hallway. Concrete shifted to rubber under his feet and he immediately veered to follow it, knowing that they had reached one of the main arteries for traffic into the convention, lined with rubber mats that covered the spiderweb of extension cords and cables providing electrical power to the thirsty mass of machines behind them. He thought quickly. Following the rubber mats would lead soon to an exit door which would be guarded. He couldn't afford to risk that and so he veered left again as soon as an opening presented itself, with a draft of ever-chillier air on his left cheek.

He needed to talk to Annie. She could so much more quickly locate something useful, but he couldn't afford to talk and alert others to their position. Right now he would use stealth and most of all patience. If there was one thing being blind had taught him, it was patience. Almost nothing was impossible to do without eyesight, but everything took more thought, more creativity and a lot more time. And time, right now, was running out.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

12:37 PM

Auggie had found his wall at last. It had been an unpromising expanse of blankness without so much as a faucet in it though. Finally he'd risked a few whispered words to Annie who had pulled them toward a locked storage closet. Trying the door, they discovered the knob would not turn, whereupon Annie pulled another paper clip out of her pocket and began picking the lock.

Several agonizing minutes went by.

"Let me try," Auggie hissed and she sighed in disgust, pushing the paper clip into his hand and abruptly turning away, her back to the wall. Auggie ignored her irate feminine vibes and reached for the knob. With only one paper clip, she'd had to bend it in half in order to have two prongs and they were stiff and unwieldy. He'd barely gotten them inserted into the keyhole and was feeling for the tumblers when Annie stiffened next to him. Someone was coming.

_Oh hell_, he thought and gave the knob a desperate pull. To his shock, the door pulled open, bouncing back from the toe of his shoe. He grimaced to think how close it probably came to his forehead. The door had been locked but not latched. _Nice_, he thought, _coupla pros we are, trying to pick an unlatched door_.

Annie had already pushed past him into the small room and he quickly followed her, pulling the door closed after them. He knew where he was immediately. The close, musty, small room smelled of sour mop water, cleaning chemicals and grime. The first thing his shins encountered was a plastic mop bucket on wheels; next his hip struck a utility sink. He stopped, his right hand resting on the rim of the sink, his heart still pounding wildly. _Adrenaline junky_, he accused himself wryly.

"This was your big plan?" asked Annie. "A janitor's closet?"

"We need to be able to talk," said Auggie.

"It's pitch black in here," Annie complained.

Auggie was about to make some sort of flip reply like "welcome to my world" but he dismissed it as cliché.

Instead he said, "Your point is?" and congratulated himself for thinking of a second comeback, even in this tight spot. "So," he said. "We need to contact Joan and let her know what this guy is up to and we need to do it ASAP so she has time to do something about it before the clock hits zero."

"Yeah," Annie agreed wryly. "So easy to do with a complete lockdown on all communications. Our encrypted phones wouldn't even work without sending him after us. What does your high-tech brain have in mind?"

"Not high-tech. Low-tech," Auggie responded thoughtfully. We need to fly under his radar. He's expecting high-tech resistance and he's ready for it. We need something he won't expect and won't notice."

"Like the old Morse Code tapping on the pipes, right?" Annie said dryly.

Auggie snorted. "Something like that. Now, they're watching this building, right? Our guys?"

"Like hawks, I'm sure."

"Maybe we can do something with the lights. Flash them or something," Auggie said, casting about in his mind for an idea, any idea.

"It'll have to be quick. I don't want to get a bullet in my back like our friend Harry," said Annie with a shudder. Auggie suddenly realized that the tiny closet _felt_ dark. Like somehow he might have known without Annie saying anything that there was no light in the little room, although really, that was preposterous. He shook his head, trying to focus. _Think_, he told himself.

Dark. Light. Dark, light in patterns. Not flashing, but solid. Patterns that most people would not notice, but patterns that Joan or Jai might.

"How many stories is this building?" he asked.

"I don't know, a bunch," said Annie. It's mostly offices and stuff above the convention floor.

"Offices with windows, right?" Auggie persisted. "On the south side?"

"Well, yeah, probably," said Annie, bewildered. "You want to go up and signal from one?"

"Too obvious," said Auggie. "I want to signal from all of them."


	9. Chapter 9

Here's another chapter for those of you who are chafing under the cliffhanger! I'm not getting very many reviews… are you enjoying the story so far? The idea is it's about the length and pacing of an actual TV episode so I'm not trying for a lot of additional depth, just some fun.

Chapter 9

1:13 PM

Auggie raced up the concrete steps in the echoing service hallway. Thirteen steps, then turn on the landing, thirteen steps, turn. Auggie rarely counted his steps when walking, preferring instead to use echoes, air currents; facial vision, as the experts called it. But on a stairway as tall and regular as this one, numbers worked too.

Annie pounded after him. The more they moved around the building the higher the risk they ran of getting caught. Auggie wished he wore a bullet-proof vest. So far the echoing hallways had been eerily silent. Melkin must not have quite enough goons to go around. Auggie figured they'd be guarding the roof pretty heavily though or the cops would have busted in by now.

"Do you see anyone?" Auggie asked urgently as Annie peered through the window onto the hallway. They stood outside a carpeted hallway lined with doors leading into offices.

"Nope, clear," she said, pushing open the door. The hallway sounded muted and still to Auggie. He pictured a non-descript color on the walls and brass name plates on each door.

Auggie's shoulder hit the door frame and he winced, wishing he had his cane. He sure could use it when he was trying to hurry.

"You're sure we're on the south side of the building?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"The sun. Curtains. Come on." He knew he was being cryptic, but at the moment did not care.

"How many people are still going to be in their offices? It's the middle of the work day after all," whispered Annie.

"None. They were all called down to the Hostage Holding Tank downstairs," Auggie responded. "And hopefully a few left their doors unlocked."

"No problem there, I nabbed this," said Annie triumphantly.

"Nabbed what?" asked Auggie, aware that they were standing, very exposed in the middle of an open hallway.

"Oh, I forgot," Annie said. "A janitor's key card, from the closet downstairs." She placed it in his hand.

He felt the smooth plastic. "I hate these things." _At hotels, they give these damn things to you and it's impossible to figure out which way to stick them in the door. There's nothing to mark them unless I stick a piece of tape on them…_ "You use it," he finished, handing it back.

The first door was unlocked. They ducked inside, just as a guard came around the corner and sauntered down the hallway. Auggie hadn't heard him, but he knew what it was the minute Annie grabbed his arm in a panic and jerked him down next to the wall inside the office. They sat motionless.

The clock on the wall ticked agonizingly slow seconds. The impression of the office to Auggie was an tangled jumble of smells: leather chairs, stale coffee, copier paper. A fly buzzed on the window sill, frantically fighting to release itself from the space behind the window blind.

At last Annie dared to peer around the corner. "He's gone," she breathed.

Auggie, meanwhile was thinking hard. Floor seven, first door.

"Open the blind," he ordered.

Annie did so, raising the curtain with a snap of the cord. Auggie let the way out into the still, silent hallway, closing the door carefully behind them.

They ducked into the next office. "Lower the blind." Auggie said.

Auggie was concentrating so hard he almost wasn't breathing. Annie used the key card, opened doors and raised and lowered blinds. Open. Closed. Open. Closed. Open. Open. Open. Closed.

They reached the end of that hallway and descended the stairs. Closed. Closed. Closed. Closed. Open…

Twice they had to duck into a room while the kid who was supposed to be guarding the hallways sauntered past. Evidently he was getting bored as evidenced by the meandering gait. He'd seen no action for the past twelve hours and he was probably envying the guys who had to merely stand still and watch a door.

Another hallway. Auggie checked his watch, brushing his fingers over the hands which read 1:40.

Another hallway. And another, working their way downward. As Auggie predicted, many of the doors were unlocked, their owners hurried away by the guns and the loudspeakers. Some were locked by occupants who had never made it in to work that morning. Annie's key card opened them all.

Snap. Open. Snap. Closed. Open, Open, Closed. Auggie pictured the pattern in his mind. One mistake and this would not work. He rubbed a hand over his eyes, dry and sandy from lack of sleep. His stomach protested the shortage of nourishment. Was this room open or closed? Open, yes, this one was Open.

Annie snapped the blind.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

2:05 PM

"Now comes the hard part," Annie observed as they crouched once more in the janitor's closet. Somehow the little room had come to feel almost home-like, a refuge.

"Waiting." Auggie finished her thought. _Yes,_ he thought, _waiting was a big part of their job_. Waiting for the clock to tick down, for the bomb to go off, waiting for the good guys to get their message and act.

"How long will they take?" Annie asked in the innocent way that made Auggie wonder for the thousandth time whether she was really the tough agent he knew her to be or the wide-eyed young recruit, fresh from the farm.

"Depends if Jai took a coffee break," Auggie said.

Auggie searched his pockets for something to occupy himself. No phone. That meant no games. He thought fondly of the speech output on his phone and the fun he'd had recently with trivia games and beer and that chesty brunette. A lot of beer, actually. He grinned to himself.

No phone, no keys, no cane, no badge, no wallet. There was a stick of gum in his right front pocket. He unwrapped it and stuck it in his mouth absently.

"Man, I gotta pee," said Annie unexpectedly.

"Occupational hazard of hiding," Auggie said. He did not have to pee, probably because he hadn't had anything to drink for at least fourteen hours. He hoped they would get out of here soon.

3:15

Auggie awoke, aware that he'd been dozing, wedged between the laundry sink and the concrete wall. Annie had been quiet, for which he was grateful. He was glad she didn't insist on constant conversation. Most girls he knew would have, but then Annie wasn't like most girls he knew.

The convention center had retained its unnatural hush, at last so far as Auggie could hear through the thick metal door, now fully latched.

3:57

Auggie was down to checking his watch every ten seconds, even though his watch had no second hand. Every so often Annie would ask him what time it was and he'd begun reporting to her. He knew there was nothing they could do, that they'd done everything they could. They crouched together in the dark, unable to relax.

3:59

Silence.

4:00

Auggie strained to hear, but there was nothing. No explosions, no shouting, no gunshots. He wondered if his watch was wrong.

4:01

Silence.

4:05

Dammit.

4:09

Annie asked him the time. He told her.

"What if we were wrong?" He'd had the same thought.

"What if they didn't get the message?"

4:16

"How long do you think we should stay in here?"

"Dunno, you have a better idea?"

4:47

Shouts erupted on the convention floor, outside of their metal door.

4:48

Auggie heard loudspeakers, muffled and indistinct.

"I'm going out there," Annie said. "I have to find out what's going on."

Cautiously they opened the door.

"FBI," a voice in their faces yelled. "Come out with your hands in the air."

Auggie closed his eyes in relief.

A/N: Thanks to those of you who have left reviews or sent me messages. Your encouragement is the only reason this is getting finished at all!


	11. Chapter 11

Okay all you Auggie fans out there! This is the last chapter of my little faux-episode. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. For my first attempt, I am pleased with the response. Maybe I'll try something a little longer or something Harry Potter after the holidays. Who knows….

Disclaimer (to apply to all previous chapters as well): Don't own Auggie or Annie or Covert Affairs. Duh.

Chapter 11

"Brilliant," said Jai Wilcox, slapping Auggie on the back. "What in the world made you think of using the blinds?"

Auggie's mouth was full of cheeseburger. He shrugged.

"So this guy," said Jai, ruffling Auggie's hair in a big-brother gesture that Auggie found irritating as hell, "This guy uses _Braille_ to signal us. Somehow in the middle of a building-wide hostage lockdown, he manages to run around to every freaking window and spell a message out in _Braille_ with the blinds."

"Last thing they'd look for," said Auggie with a shrug, taking a long pull on his beer bottle. _Aaaaahhhh_….

"It was about the last thing we looked for either. I mean, yeah, we were watching the building and monitoring everything like hell, but that wasn't something we were looking for. For one thing the glare of the sun on the windows means we almost missed it."

"Didn't think of that," Auggie admitted under his breath. Annie bumped his knee under the table and he grinned.

"But I was going through the Bank building next door on my way up to check out those guys on the roof. I happened to glance out a window and saw one of the blinds move. I thought it might be a signal so I stopped to watch." Jai threw back a long swig of beer, warming to his tale. Auggie and Annie concentrated on the food.

"So I watch and what do you know, another one moved. If you had seen me you could have quit playing with the blinds and just used sign language or something." Jai chuckled at his own joke, then continued. "Finally I decided they were making a message of some kind. I tried Morse but got nothing. More blinds were changing and I knew you and Auggie must be behind it."

Auggie reflected how annoying it was when conversations were made next to him that did not include him. He took another long drink.

"I figured we might be bugged so I didn't ring it in right away," Jai said and Auggie thought the guy got points for that one. "The blinds moving sort of reminded me of Auggie's nifty computer keyboard." _Display_. _Refreshable Braille display, not keyboard_, thought Auggie.

"I don't know Braille, but I went to get some of the downstairs guys and one of them looked it up on his iPhone. We finally got your message: Black Hawk 4 O'Clock. From that, Joan knew just what to look for. She intercepted the moron's transmissions, threw in a fake message to the cohorts to abort the damn thing and sent in the Feds to take him down. She even had Arthur sic his attack dogs on the terrorist location that the guy was signaling."

Auggie reflected on the amount of classified information that floated around this noisy little bar. This was way better than the official debrief had been, plus the beer and burgers had never tasted better.

THE END


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